


The Journey Home: A Story in Three Parts, Plus Some Bagels

by cfcureton



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), olicity - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Olicityweek 2017: Favorite Quotes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-04 23:12:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12781692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cfcureton/pseuds/cfcureton
Summary: My contribution to Olicityweek 2017: Favorite QuotesThe title of my Tumblr blog is No One Is Eating The Bagels, which is my favorite Felicity quote. Here is my story about it (7 days early, because I have severe impulse control issues when it comes to publishing fan fiction...and frosted sugar cookies.)





	The Journey Home: A Story in Three Parts, Plus Some Bagels

Part One: Felicity

68 hours. 68 freaking hours since she and Diggle had parachuted into Lian Yu, she had lost her lunch, and they had completed their quest to locate Mr Grumpy Pants Queen.

17,208 kilometers, give or take. Felicity had even given it to them in miles—not that Oliver or Diggle had any trouble understanding klicks—but she was used to doing the conversion for her mother, and it gave her something else to point out to them in her loud voice.

52 of those 68 hours had been spent on that god forsaken island; two nights of sleeping on who-knows-what in the cargo plane, scrunched up against loads of Well-Built Man for warmth—not that she was complaining about that part, exactly.

At first it was just Diggle, but halfway through the first night she’d had a dream that the land mine had actually exploded, scattering pieces of herself everywhere; she’d awakened with a shriek, and after that Oliver had joined them on her other side, both men lying with their backs to her so she had to either sleep on her back all night or spoon one of them. Felicity Smoak was a lot of things, but never the big spoon.

It was another 14 hours of flying once they caught the ride that Oliver had made provisions for in case of emergency before leaving Starling City; no indoor plumbing for two-plus days constituted a pretty big emergency in Felicity’s mind. 

At least the flight across the ocean was private, a whole row for each of them. She slept for most of it, free of any more land mine nightmares, although she did dream about Oliver once; the details evaporated as Diggle shook her awake to tell her they were landing.

By that point Felicity couldn’t remember when she should be hungry, or tired, so she settled for being both, all the time.

Including their initial trip across the water she was going on four days without a shower or a change of clothes, so she was not at her best when Oliver insisted on touring the Glades and reviewing the dossier on Isabel Rochev before any of them could go home. 

68 hours. Felicity was feeling every single one of them when she finally burrowed into her bed and sought the sweet release of sleep. 

At 69 hours her phone chimed with an incoming text. She fumbled blindly after the offending sound, her mouth dry as a desert and stuck shut, her eyes impossibly gritty, her whole body shaking with fatigue.

It was from Oliver, and it was only one word:

‘Bagels’

‘What the hell’, she texted back, finally spelling everything right on the third try but ignoring punctuation entirely.

‘For the meeting tomorrow. Need you to pick some up.’

Felicity devoted a full minute to contemplating which of Dig’s self defense moves she should use the next time she saw Oliver. One of the maiming ones, obviously.

She adjusted her alarm by thirty minutes with a little sob and buried her face back in her pillow. 

She shed actual tears when her alarm buzzed six hours later, but fell out of bed and crawled into the shower anyway. Admittedly, she only had herself to blame for taking the time to mess with the whole hair straightening routine, all because—God help her—Oliver had sidled up to her while they were waiting for their ride off the island and pointed out quietly that she’d done something different with her hair. Then the corners of his mouth had twitched up ever so slightly, damn him, as if he knew that getting a compliment from him was equivalent to handing her the moon. 

She had a new pair of probably NSFW heels she was dying to wear, but she tossed them in her purse and stepped into flats instead, since she was going to have to hike to the bakery before work. She could change into the others later.

It was just her luck to have to buy bagels on Jewish grandmother day, but she was cutting it close on time; no way she could ditch this line and get to another shop before the meeting started. Besides, Lord Mesa Bakery was the best on this side of town.

Still, she had to bite her tongue to keep from commenting when she realized the little old lady in front of her had waited until she was called on to start figuring out what she wanted. 

After all that, they were out of Everything bagels, so she settled for a dozen plain, practically throwing the money at him before hustling out of the shop.

Felicity’s anger at finding herself entertaining Isabel Rochev and her attorney alone (not counting the untouched bagels) because both of her partners were late was hot and getting hotter. The bowels of Mt Doom hot, though she wouldn’t bother throwing that reference Oliver’s way, because what would be the point.

The conference room was filled with frosty cold silence, so she had no trouble hearing the elevator ding fifteen minutes past the hour. Felicity excused herself and fled the glacial stare of Ms Rochev, then stomped toward the glass door, determined to get there first and fling it open with righteous indignation. (At this point she realized she’d forgotten to switch into her killer heels, more’s the pity.)

“They’re in the conference room,” she announced unnecessarily, just to let them know what she’d been enduring alone. She leveled a pointed look at Oliver and added, “Just FYI, no one is eating the bagels.” 

 

Part Two: Oliver

He was happy to see them. 

After almost a year away, Lian Yu didn’t feel the same, but it wasn’t the island that had changed. Oliver breathed more easily with John Diggle watching his back, and he’d come to rely on Felicity for...everything else. Having them with him felt right and wrong at the same time, and the juxtaposition set his teeth on edge.

Of course Felicity wasted no time letting him know how ungrateful he was being when he protested their presence; after all, they’d been carrying on in his absence, watching his family fall apart, worrying about his company falling apart, all while searching for him. As usual, when she pointed out the obvious it made him look like a jerk.

Those two nights they spent waiting for their ride were pure torture. Oliver found it incredibly hard to stay facing away from her, and that was a big, big problem, because no. Not in this lifetime, in their current situation; he wouldn’t risk it.

But something overcame him on the plane ride home as he sat propped against the window in the row he had to himself, sleepless after a nightmare about Felicity and that land mine. She was stretched out in the row across from him, safe and sound, almost completely hidden under the thin, standard-issue airplane blanket. Her ponytail was about the only thing he could see; the ponytail he was really digging, all of a sudden. 

The rumbles of Diggle snoring in the row behind him convinced him to go for it, so he wrapped his own blanket around his shoulders and crept to her side of the plane, settling on the floor and leaning back against the fuselage, his shoulder near her mostly-buried head. And he began to talk.

No fear of her hearing him over the cabin noise, or Dig’s log sawing. Oliver started with his escape from Starling City; the precautions he took to avoid her electronic eyes, how peaceful a bit of silence and solitude could be after the last few tumultuous months before the Undertaking. 

Then he told her how terrifying it was to hear the click of that land mine under the ball of her foot. He’d seen other people step on those before, rolled a body onto one himself once; the results weren’t pretty. 

He couldn’t stop himself from running his fingers through the tail end of her hair a couple of times, just to confirm for sure that she was real, and alive. He had missed her so much.

Oliver slipped back to his row when he heard Diggle turn over, leery of being caught. Cold and detached, that was the way he’d decided to play it. The best for everyone involved.

He thought of the bagels just as he was settling down to sleep in the mansion, on the floor; the adjustment period back into civilization was no less of a bitch this time. Felicity’s nasty reply almost startled a laugh out of him; yikes. Even knowing he’d pissed her off, he felt better for having reached out, and fell asleep as soon as the light on his phone faded out.

He was late the next morning; of course he was. Oliver Queen was never good at keeping to schedules even when he was working at it regularly. A few months on the island with only the sun and stars to help him tell time had only made him worse. 

Diggle never said a word, but then he never had to; if Oliver was late then the guy driving him was bound to be too, and he knew his friend hated to look irresponsible. Being on the receiving end of their blonde partner’s loud voice was no picnic either. 

Felicity appeared on the other side of the glass just as he was striding out of the elevator, and she flung the left door open before he could reach for it. Some sort of misplaced chivalry—or maybe mule-headed stubbornness—kept him from passing through the offered door, so he pushed the other in himself, his eyes skimming past hers as quickly as possible lest he see what he knew would be there: Judgement and anger, both deserved. 

He’d take his licks from her later; right now he had to focus on fighting for his company.

 

Part Three: Diggle

Christ Almighty, these two.


End file.
